Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1887-05-05

Slavery to Walking Delegates.
ANNAPOLIS, No.. April "a, 's7.

Slavery to Walking Delegates.
ANNAPoLIs, No.. April "a, 1877.
Ed. Register
Will you please print the following
article which cut from the Chicag,
Inter- Ocean. I know you, like myself
having to work for living. cannot bu
be friendly to working people; but d.
you think they ought to permit suct
things to be done in their name?
Respectfully, @.
Eugene O'Connor, a poor, consump
tive shoe-maker, ended the nliseries o
this life by knife, which he applied tt
his throat in a New York boarding
house on Monday last.
He was a model workman, faithful
and true, skilled and ambitious. He
had been i'm the employ of Hanan &
Son for twelve years, having entered
their service when he was not quite Is
years of age. Hanan & Son hire about
500 men. mostly for fine work, and
Eugene O'ConnOr was rated by the
firm as among the best. But his health
was poor. Had he been able to work
full time he would have laid a little
money by, for he was as sober and
thrifty as he was skillful and industri-
Gus; his employers appreciated his
worth and kept him on the payroll
despite of frequent enforced absence.
Eugene frequently said that if he lost
his place with Hanan d Son he could
find no other firm to tolerate the irreg-
ularities caused by his infirmity. The
relation between Eugene and Hanan &
Son was the ideal of that which should
always subsist between employers and
employed.
A few weeks ago it pleased the
Knights of Labor to descend like a
wolf on the fold of Hanan & Son.
There was just one person in the enl-
ploy of the firm who was not a knight;
this person was young man, less than
Is years of age. He refused to become
a member, aud Hanan & Son, while
no hostility to organized
Iab bor, refused to discharge a young
man who simply exercised the right of
a free man in electing to keep out OF
what is supposed to be "a voluntary
of workmen." Wbereupon
the high priests of the knights ordered
a strike, and the whistle was blown.
" OnHHOT Was Knight, anu "SiI tot
with sixty or seventy others. Trade
was dull and Hanan & Son were rather
benefited than injured by the with
drawal Of the strikers from the wage
list At the end of a week many of
the strikers, O'Connor among them,
asked to he taken back. O'Conner was
taken back, on account Of sympathy
with lis infirmity and approval of his
general good conduct. This sickly
man had a wife and two children de-
pendent upon him.
No sooner had he returned to work
than the walking delegates, gentlemen
who array themselves in fine linen and
fare sumptuously, who toll not. neither
do they spin, proceeded to make life
tn him. He was waylaid
on the. streets, he was visited at his
home, lie was beseiged by letters at bis
he was advised of the sin
Of cor: ,:tifuing to eafn living for his
wife and children in factory that pol
Iuted the air by the presence OF small
tscab" Finally he was Of
fered "a liberal allowance" weekly
from the knights treasury if he would
1nce more desert the employers with
whom lis relations were so friendly.
In a moment of weakness he consent
ed; the only moral infirmity of this
poor man was his unreasoning devo- |
ion to the tyranny of secret oligarchy. |
However, the boasted ''liberal allow |
ance" was not enough to keep his fam
ly alive. He went back to Hanan d |
Son, and they received him.
Then the fury of hell was made man. |
fest by the walking delegates. This
Door, industrious, sick1y fellow, who
lad the quality of love of wife and
was reveled upon the streets,
threatened with violent assault, persec-
lted with all the ingenuity which leis-
Irely walking delegates could devise.
He was nervous by reason of long i'll
lealth; doubly SO by reason of excite
nent and persecution, added to i'll
iealtl.. Shortly after he had gone to
work for the last time, the foreman
noticed how feebly he walked, and
stopping him at the foot of the stairs,
'aid:
"Come go up the elevator, O'Connor.o He
lid so, and on the way up he said, in hope
ess sort of way: 81 am almost crazy;
ion't know what to do. They are not only
,ave gone to the place where my wife is
working and threaten that they will order
strike there, and then what will we do for
ourselves and our children"
Inc rest Is SnOTt. he ucSpalTlIS
nan went home and killed himself
,utchered to feed the walking dele
gates. That is the story. 1t needs no
It is p story of the most
grinding dispotism to which labor has
ever been subjected,
At about the same time that Eugene
O'Connor poured out his life's blood at
he altar whereon sacrifices to walking
delegates are made man named Pat |
:erson poured out another kind of
blood. He too had "gone out" at or
lers from the oligarchs; he too had
gone back to work at tile dictates of
marital ard fatherly affection: he too
had been subject to insult aud abuse
rom the regal walking delegates; the
hand of violence had been stretched
forth toward him also. But Patterson |
was not nervous man; he took from
his pocket what Thomas Carlyle once |
described as "a sufficient Birmingham
pocket pistol" and there was merit
,rious subsistence of the walking dele
gate.
In what age do we live? Has this
century freed millions of negroes from
slavery to capitalists and invented q
slavery of whithe laborers to walking
delegates and to oligarchs from whose
treasury walking delegates are paid?-
Chicago Inter OCEAN.